I was the guy who didn't get a cool little apartment. I took one for the team. I liked having the place we could make noise in, the place that could be the center of the music. I sat down and calculated it one day, and over the years, I've had something like 38 roommates.
Adam Granduciel
I ended up renting a studio in L.A. for about 15 months. Starting in January of 2016, some of the guys in the band were coming out once every five to six weeks for like five days a time.
I would spend about eight months on a song, leaving it alone and going back to it later on. I just kept layering things on, building them up in to epic songs. I let the songs evolve - it's really daunting.
I tend to think about so many different things on a recording. I'll be trying to tune into what the drummer's doing, trying to keep everyone playing the groove and other things like making sure the piano's in a nice pocket.
I don't like drums dictating the song; like when you hear a fill and then you know the chorus is coming up.
As he grew older, his material was just as relevant and just as exciting and the band's just as killer... It seems surreal that there's no more Tom Petty, in person.
No I don't play bluegrass harmonica or anything like that. I don't listen to country or bluegrass records.
My mom and dad never really had friends, never went on vacations. We stayed home. And I see a similarity there: A general anxiety runs pretty deep.
I like that kind of classic-type sound. A lot of my favorite albums were tracked live, with a four-piece band. I love the way those albums sound, but I want to make records that sound like that in the way I like to make stuff.
My siblings weren't playing music; I was the only one who wanted to buy a guitar and was listening on headphones the whole time.
In terms of tone and style, I've always been influenced by a lot of different players. I love Nick Drake, Mike Bloomfield and Sonic Boom. I like those three a lot!
I'd think the house was the source of great sadness or pressure. I knew it wasn't. I knew it was just where I lived. But I'd walk up the stairs and the second floor was just desolate. My old bedroom: empty. My old rehearsal room: empty. First floor studio: messy and empty. Middle room: broken gear everywhere.
Touring is a rough thing. You don't have any time to look around or stop and think if what you're doing is making you happy. The more you tour, the better the band gets, and you get caught up in a lot more things than just traveling.
I just want to make that my life: recording music and trying to write a good song every day.
My kind of music is probably not going to shoot to the top, but I'm fine with that. There's still enough rock'n'roll soldiers.
There are so many great records that when you grow older, you're like, 'Oh man, this is the best record ever made.' And you're like, 'Oh it didn't get nominated or win a Grammy.' It's countless, how many amazing, classic American records haven't been knighted or whatever.
It's cool that our stuff is received as it is, and our stuff is fairly long. But from a songwriter's purview as well as an exercise, I'm trying to write shorter material and find ways to condense ideas.
All day long you write little ideas on the piano and the guitar, but sometimes all you have to do is come in, set up the mic, press record and start the process.
I love playing guitar every night, and to be at this point where it's like, the songs are done and I'm happy with the way they are on record, and I get to hear them be reinterpreted by the live band? That's kind of the icing on the cake. It's the best.
I usually know the general emotion of a song, or the general feeling of it, and then I think I just get so excited by the act of recording. I love that process so much that I feel like if I knew exactly what I wanted I'd arrive at something too soon.
I was a bouncer, if you can believe it for a while in a sports bar. I let everybody in.
I love Tom Petty the way a lot of people love him. He's got so many amazing songs, and you know them by heart. They're classics.
It was definitely strange to come home and all of a sudden have to shift gears into creative mode. I kind of had to figure out what it was about music that made it exciting, and question what it was that made it worth sacrificing all the other parts of my life that weren't as satisfying.
There's a lot of older musicians who say your whole life making music, you're really trying to get back to that first couple of things you liked when you were a kid. And as much as you might like to think you're not, you really are.
I've never set out to do anything other than get better at guitar and record and have fun. I feel like the Jazzmaster's just your comrade on that journey. It can be really subtle, it can be angry, it can be chill. It can be anything.
The Heartbreakers were what you imagine being in a band would be like - best buddies and great players and guys who took it all really seriously.
You can't really take it for granted that people listen to your music. I want to write songs that are on par, at least in my mind, with the ones I've loved for my whole life and that will be around forever.
I think from an East Coast point of view, you'd be like, 'Oh, a California record's a sunny record.' It's like you spend three hours in the studio because the rest of the time you must be at the beach.
I'm really picky about stuff like videos or even pictures of the band, but at the same time, I don't really know what it is I want; I just know what I don't want.
The ability to work every day was a big part of L.A.'s effect on my process and the band coming out from Philly once a month.
I work off of my early demos. I'll keep adding on top of that, but I usually gravitate towards whatever that original idea was.
I mean, Philadelphia, if the Eagles were to win the Super Bowl, you kind of wonder how it'd change the city in some way. At the end of the day, as intense as Eagles fans are or as Philadelphia fans are, they really just love their team and they'll be happy either way. The Eagles have made Philadelphia proud.
I immediately felt welcomed, whereas in Massachusetts, I'd grown up there but I felt like such an outsider. Within a week or two of moving to Philly I felt there was something I could be a part of.
I just need to work. There's no other thing with me.
When you're in the moment and not over thinking the song is when things tend to really work. You're not so focused on the minutiae. You're focused on the overall feel, and that's the stuff that I get from the demos.
I'd love to do denim merch sometime, though. That's pretty much the mainstay of my wardrobe. I have a bunch of denim jackets I wear all the time.
All those crazy Impressionist painters in France were friends but they would write about how jealous and competitive they were. That's what makes good art.
I didn't want to start aiming for fame. It would be silly to not have entertained offers.
All of my favorite music was probably in the rock category.
I've seen people who like a certain song write on their Instagram what they think the lyrics are - which they aren't. I'm like, 'Oh, that's interesting - you can create your own adventure with some of these songs.' Which is really cool.
I remember that in the past I was overwhelmed with the mystery of anxiety, or the mystery of depression, but now when you feel that feeling coming on you no longer go into fight-or-flight mode. You go: 'Oh, I know what this is' and you ride it out.
I can't just go into the studio with one idea and be all in on that, 100 percent. It takes me a while to arrive at something that feels like it's finished.
I don't know what the sound is or the song is until I've spent a lot of time on it. I'm always chipping away at it, rethinking it.
Somewhere between this kind of cruising freedom, and this understated moment where all these little things intertwine to create a bigger sound. You don't want one thing to be bright, or too prevalent.
I've just grown up. Respecting yourself and your art means taking an interest in the other responsibilities.
I like to work hard and I like to work for somebody. I like to stay late and clean up the back and show the boss in the morning.
When I was a kid, the Patriots were my team, but I didn't really care, you know what I mean? I got taken to a game once by a friend and it was the coldest I've ever been in my life. It was torture.
I never have a clear goal or a theme when it comes to writing an album.
When I was a kid I was definitely into Neil Young.
Every show with my Jazzmaster is like a new show.
